TITLE: The American Sycamore

CHARACTERS: Olivia Dunham, John Scott

GENRE: Dark

RATING: M

SUMMARY: "Life is but a moment, death also is but another." -Robert H. Schuller

SPOILERS: Season One pilot

AUTHOR'S NOTE: A story that has wanted to be written since October 2008 and fondly finished two years later

DISCLAIMER: unbeta'd


Olivia, Olivia Dunham, Special Agent, Olivia is the fall frost, coating all that she touches with a slight cold taint; those that are exposed to it for too long die. She is closed and empty, full of need and want. Ice—entirely solid and complete, but made of nothing. But she longs for the heat that others generate, real people. The ones that go home family and friends, that know how to laugh and smile, small flames hidden inside bodies. She isn't sure if she should gravitate to their fires—would she become warm, too, or would she simply melt away? She is caught between wanting hot and cold, scared of both.

If she is the frost, then John Scott is Winter. Dark, draining, bleak, she can feel this pull in him, the way a frozen lake still has its own hidden tide. Like the moon, she draws this part of him out, she compliments it. John is mysterious and dangerous—she knows this—and while she wants a normal relationship with a man, she has no idea how to handle 'normal'. He is a shadow, lurking in the dark, out of the line of sight, but she can see him, can see what he is.

It's at a mindless soiree that they're first introduced. She can instantly tell he is just what she needs. He is both good and evil, dark and light, judge, jury, and executioner. He is a man who knows what he wants and how he wants it and she knows that he wants her. She can see that he can help her achieve who she wants to be, who she has been struggling to rebuild herself as. She stands quietly, waiting, knowing that he will make the first move, that he must choose her, declare her worth of being saved.

His eyes are sharp, ice.

He tells her it's a pleasure to meet her and she can see that it's not a nicety, but the secret way he's letting her know that he's been waiting for her and they've both crossed a threshold that they can never come back from. His fingers grasp hers tightly and while she has a powerful handshake as well, she knows he can see through it, see how weak she is.

He smiles and her heart beats wildly, feeling as though she's been thrown into ice water, her body fighting and struggling to free herself to him, but she bides her time and by the end of the evening, he's taken her to a hotel room to lay claim to her.

And Olivia is ready to drown in him.